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Experimental fiction

 Subject
Subject Source: Sackner Database

Found in 78 Collections and/or Records:

Everything is Illuminated, 2002

 Item
Identifier: CC-38971-40908
Scope and Contents This copy is the first edition, first printing of the book. The book was reviewed by Publishers Weekly:What would it sound like if a foreigner wrote a novel in broken English? Foer answers this question to marvelous effect in his inspired though uneven first novel. Much of the book is narrated by Ukrainian student Alex Perchov, whose hilarious and, in their own way, pitch-perfect malapropisms flourish under the influence of a thesaurus. Alex works for his family's travel agency, which caters to Jews who want to explore their ancestral shtetls. Jonathan Safran Foer, the novel's other hero, is such a Jew an American college student looking for the Ukrainian woman who hid his grandfather from the Nazis. He, Alex, Alex's depressive grandfather and his grandfather's "seeing-eye bitch" set out to find the elusive woman. Alex's descriptions of this "very rigid search" and his accompanying letters to Jonathan are interspersed with Jonathan's own mythical history of his...
Dates: 2002

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, 2005

 Item
Identifier: CC-43955-46066
Scope and Contents This is a tender, sad, briliant story of the inner life of a young boy after the death of his beloved father in the 9/11 tragedy of the Twin towers destruction in New York.From Publishers Weekly: Oskar Schell, hero of this brilliant follow-up to Foer's bestselling Everything Is Illuminated, is a nine-year-old amateur inventor, jewelry designer, astrophysicist, tambourine player and pacifist. Like the second-language narrator of Illuminated, Oskar turns his naïvely precocious vocabulary to the understanding of historical tragedy, as he searches New York for the lock that matches a mysterious key left by his father when he was killed in the September 11 attacks, a quest that intertwines with the story of his grandparents, whose lives were blighted by the firebombing of Dresden. Foer embellishes the narrative with evocative graphics, including photographs, colored highlights and passages of illegibly overwritten text, and takes his unique flair for the poetry of miscommunication to...
Dates: 2005

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, 2005

 Item
Identifier: CC-43956-46067
Scope and Contents This is a tender, sad, briliant story of the inner life of a young boy after the death of his beloved father in the 9/11 tragedy of the Twin towers destruction in New York.From Publishers Weekly: Oskar Schell, hero of this brilliant follow-up to Foer's bestselling Everything Is Illuminated, is a nine-year-old amateur inventor, jewelry designer, astrophysicist, tambourine player and pacifist. Like the second-language narrator of Illuminated, Oskar turns his naïvely precocious vocabulary to the understanding of historical tragedy, as he searches New York for the lock that matches a mysterious key left by his father when he was killed in the September 11 attacks, a quest that intertwines with the story of his grandparents, whose lives were blighted by the firebombing of Dresden. Foer embellishes the narrative with evocative graphics, including photographs, colored highlights and passages of illegibly overwritten text, and takes his unique flair for the poetry of miscommunication to...
Dates: 2005

Ground Works: Avant-Garde for Thee , 2002

 Item
Identifier: CC-41495-43482
Scope and Contents

This book is a compendium of Canadian avant garde writing from 1965 to 1985. Margaret Atwood, who contributed an over-view essay of the work produced during those years, collaborated with Bok to organize the selections of experimental fiction by the authors. John Riddell contributed "Pope Leo: El Lope" from Criss-Cross. It is a lipogram using only the letters e, o, l and p. The contribution by bp Nichol is from "Still... a novel that depicts in minute detail the scenography for a potential, but postponed , story... his words provide a kind of textual terrain across which the eye pans like a camera." Steve McCaffery's "Panopticon" is an enigmatic whodunnit...The panopticon symbolizes the maze of words through which the reader must wander, playing the role of invisible spectator." -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Dates: 2002

Hairbone Stew: Psychotic Nursery Rhymes, 1988

 Item — Box 341: [Barcode: 31858072491263]
Identifier: CC-21293-21703
Scope and Contents

According to Kettner, "This is the first (and only) edition, limited to less than 100 copies. Cover a color xerox of a Chris Winkler painting tipped onto very heavy, gold card stock. Text illustrated throughout with Miskowski's "applananoids;" that is, animated figures with an appliance/electrical theme. Print on covers rubber-stamped. Tissue endpapers. A primo xerox publication." -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Dates: 1988

History of the/my World, 1995

 Item
Identifier: CC-16235-16580
Scope and Contents

This book was critically reviewed by Marjorie Perloff in Harvard Library Bulletin Vol.3 No.2, 1992, a periodical held by the Sackner Archive. This is the trade edition of the book that was first printed in a limited edition of 70 copies in 1990. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Dates: 1995

House Mother Normal: A Geriatric Comedy, 1971

 Item
Identifier: CC-31706-33216
Scope and Contents

This is the first edition of the book limited to 100 copies for sale and 26 for distribution by the author. The layout of the text has unusual spacing and a variety of fonts. In one chapter, the spaced words take on a concrete poetic appearance and in another, the spaced letters almost appear like a letter picture. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Dates: 1971

House Mother Normal: A Geriatric Comedy, 1986

 Item
Identifier: CC-31638-33140
Scope and Contents

This is a later printing of the book sometime after 1986. The first edition which is identical in layout and also held by the Sackner Archive, was published in only 126 copies. The layout of the text has unusual spacing and a variety of fonts. In one chapter, the spaced words take on a concrete poetic appearance and in another, the spaced letters almost appear like a letter picture. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Dates: 1986

La disparition, 1983

 Item
Identifier: CC-58914-51772
Scope and Contents

It should be noted that Ernest Vincent Wright in the novel "Gadsby" also wrote a novel without the letter 'e' in 1939. This copy is a reprint of the original novel first printed in 1969. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Dates: 1983

La Prairie des Eveils, 1986

 Item
Identifier: CC-22384-22807
Scope and Contents

The text of this book was written by Butor and the etchings made by Qotbi. This deluxe edition includes additional suite of five etchings by Qotbi on Japon paper, each signed and numbered 5/10. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Dates: 1986

Lanark: A Life in 4 Books, 1985

 Item
Identifier: CC-31798-33316
Scope and Contents This is the first American edition of the novel originally published by Canongate Publishing in England in 1981. The visionary drawings reproduced in this book were made by Gray. Andrew Crumey WEB 1999 wrote the following. "Alasdair Gray was born on 28 December 1934 in Glasgow, and trained as a painter at the Glasgow School Of Art. He worked as an art teacher, muralist and theatrical scene painter (experiences which are reflected in novels such as "Lanark" and "1982, Janine"), and his illustrations for his own books (as well as his bold use of typography) form a crucial part of their unique appeal. In the early seventies, Gray attended an informal writers' group run by Philip Hobsbaum, along with James Kelman, Tom Leonard, Liz Lochhead, Agnes Owens and others. Work would be photocopied and distributed in advance for the group to discuss and criticise. Gray had already been working on "Lanark" since the fifties, and found Kelman's advice particularly helpful. The novel was finished...
Dates: 1985

Life a User's Manual, 1987

 Item
Identifier: CC-32004-33535
Scope and Contents Originally published in French in 1978, this novel is considered to be an outstanding example of twentieth century fiction in the tradition of Canterbury Tales and Ulysses. It is composed of a seies of stories that occur at the same time in an apartment building in the 17th arrondisement of Paris. Fictional but meaningful, the people and events are described in humorous and specific detail. The book is constructed like a puzzle and contains an index and a chronology.WikipedIa: Life A User's Manual (the original title is La Vie mode d'emploi) is Georges Perec's most famous novel, published in 1978, first translated into English by David Bellos in 1987. Its title page describes it as "novels", in the plural, the reasons for which become apparent on reading. Some critics have cited the work as an example of postmodern fiction, though Perec himself preferred to avoid labels and his only long term affiliation with any movement was with the Oulipo or OUvroir de LItterature POtentielle.La...
Dates: 1987

Morte per Elaboratore, 1968

 Item
Identifier: CC-11436-11652
Scope and Contents

The text is set in multi-colored blocks of orange, rose or purple. Blocks of aqua are used with the words "cielo azzurro" and "cielo acqua." -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Dates: 1968

myesis (Vol.1), 2006

 Item
Identifier: CC-45694-47902
Scope and Contents

myesis signifies layers and stages of fragmentation. Chapters or sections as fragments of the book; paragraphs as fragments of chapters; sentences as fragments of the paragraphs; phrases as fragments of the sentences; words as fragments of the phrases; letters as fragments of the words. I read the empty spaces. Myesis is an excessive, minimalist writing. Leftwich interweaves Greek mythology, Judaism, comments on music and performance with language poetry and the rules of poetry . He provides several long quotes from contemporary poets. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Dates: 2006